Vhenan Aravel
Chapter 41: Eyes of Wolves - Hostile Allies

Copyright© 2017 by eatenbydragons

Fan Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 41: Eyes of Wolves - Hostile Allies - Raviathan, a city elf with too many secrets and regrets, undergoes a long journey in order to find his way in the world. Part 1 is a Dragon Age Blight fic with many additions and twists to the original story. This story starts off on the fluffy side, but beware. Thar be dragons, and it will dip into darker territories. I'd rather overtag for potential triggers than undertag. Rape and prostitution occur rarely in the overall narrative, but they are present.

Caution: This Fan Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa   Ma/Ma   Consensual   Magic   Rape   Reluctant   Romantic   Gay   BiSexual   Heterosexual   Fiction   Fan Fiction   High Fantasy   Interracial   Anal Sex   Analingus   First   Masturbation   Oral Sex   Petting   Prostitution  

“Are you feeling better?” Leliana asked.

A shiver ran through Alistair’s body as he fought against the memory of scuttling movement and clicking mandibles. The giant spiders had creeped him out almost as much as darkspawn, a feeling made worse by those eyes, glittering faceted pools of inky blackness that craved him for meat.

A bristled nightmare of a creature had leapt at him, its weight overwhelming him. Hard pincers snapped before his eyes. Screaming as he tried to keep the creature from ripping at his face, Alistair wrestled the monstrous arachnid with every ounce of strength his taxed muscles carried. Viscous fluid dripped from the clacking mandibles. Poison, saliva, or something worse, Alistair didn’t know. For those few panicked seconds, his mind yelled, ‘Maker, don’t let it touch me!’

On his back and struggling, Alistair couldn’t stop, couldn’t even see the other spider scuttling up. Fangs plunged into his calf and poured venom into his leg. Fire raced in his blood. The poison turned his leg to a torment of mind-bending agony as if a hoard of fire ants swarmed and bit at his flesh.

His companions had killed the two spiders just as Alistair’s muscles gave out. Had they been a heartbeat later, half of Alistair’s face would have been chewed off.

An aura distorted Alistair’s vision. He remembered Raviathan standing over him, yelling something and slapping his face, but Alistair couldn’t get his muscles under control enough to do more than utter nonsensical sounds. Instead, he stared up into the worried face that left green and red trails whenever the elf moved.

The rest remained a blur in his memory. His leg felt constricted, throbbing under too tight a splint. He remembered Sten’s jostling gait as the qunari ran with Alistair on his back. Every step Sten took shot more fire into his leg until Alistair prayed he would pass out. All else in his mind consisted of green smudges of forest and the shouting of his companions.

Later, once the antivenom worked its way through his system, Alistair learned of what happened on the journey. At Raviathan’s orders, Morrigan had turned into a bird and scanned the area for Dalish. The two Dalish hunters, having heard tales of the Witch of the Wilds, showed a cautious respect for Morrigan, enough that their party could approach without being shot on sight.

Talking quickly, Raviathan explained about the treaty and spider bite. Though inherently distrustful, the hunters had relented and taken them to the Dalish camp. The Keeper himself had seen to Alistair’s injuries. If only Alistair had been aware enough to see the Keeper’s magic. His memory retained only vague impressions of hands moving over him, lines of green light, and the faint chanting of a language almost forgotten.

The antivenom the Dalish kept did most of the work, but Zathrian’s power eased the swelling and sped his healing. Left on a cot near the other injured elves, Alistair had been enduring stomach cramps, profuse sweating, and pain in his extremities for most of the day. Once the cool of evening settled, the Dalish antivenom had worked most of the spider toxin out. What remained of Alistair’s injuries was a mild headache, occasional tremors, and a clamminess that clung to his skin.

Stunned at the number of elves lying stricken around him, Alistair wondered at their number. Had the taint been responsible for his speedy recovery? His limbs felt stiff, almost wooden, as he paced to one of the benches near a small fire pit. That small effort left him shaking and exhausted. Though his recovery was remarkable, Alistair still felt disturbingly fragile.

Huddled under a few blankets to keep the chill away, Alistair wondered where the rest of his companions had gotten off to. The witch was probably off terrifying small animals. Good riddance.

After a moment, he spotted Sten in a quiet corner of the camp. The giant sat in contemplation, his lips moving in prayer. Alistair had seen enough prayers back in his templar days to recognize religious meditation at a glance. Watching the qunari struck Alistair anew with the man’s complete foreignness.

Just what did qunari pray to? The Chantry vilified the northern heathens as violent, unthinking barbarians needing the enlightenment of the Chant if they were to be saved. How much of that was true? From what little he had gleaned, the qunari didn’t worship a god. So what did they worship? Dwarves had paragons. Could it be something similar? Ancestors perhaps? The giant didn’t exactly encourage small talk though.

What would Leliana think of Sten? What would she make of his religion? Alistair badly wanted to talk to someone about what was in his head. Of all his companions, he trusted her opinion the most.

As if summoned by his thoughts, a melodious voice asked, “How are you recovering, Alistair?”

“Feeling much better.” Alistair managed a weak smile. Heat and cold kept rushing through him, but the trembling in his hands had at least stopped.

“Then you are to eat.” Leliana sat next to Alistair and handed him a bowl of supper like her own: venison, roasted wild roots, and a thick slice of pale cheese.

“What’s this?” Alistair took a moment to smell the cheese first. His stomach gnawed at him as it always did, but a brief moment to appreciate the aroma of the soft cheese made his eyelids half close in anticipated pleasure.

“Cheese made from halla milk.”

The first bite filled his mouth with cream as smooth as pure butter fat. A little moan escaped his throat as the cheese melted. Cream gave way to a nutty woodiness, like pine seeds and sweet tree sap. Aged to bring out a heavier richness added more complexity, the cheese took on flavors similar to smoked wood. If there was ever a time they could settle down, he’d buy a barrel of halla cheese every year for his own personal stash.

Alistair sniffed at a root. After that miserable trek through the wilds, he’d had enough of roots. The honey coating on these offered a nice change compared to the bitter roots of the swamp, but the weeks of starvation with the hard roots cramping his stomach made him leery of eating more.

“They’re so beautiful, aren’t they?”

“Hmm?” Alistair had to stop thinking of his stomach to understand the bard.

Leliana’s wistful smile answered him as she watched the Dalish.

The dancing firelight gave warmth and animation to the gathered faces. A redheaded elf with tattoos running from the corners of his mouth to the corners of his eyes in a myriad of complex lines told a story, his voice low and dark to draw in his audience, his arms emphasizing and shaping the tale. All the elves gathered around, working at some task as they listened: mending clothes or shaping leather, weaving baskets, carving wood, or fletching arrows.

Elven eyes shown from the evening shadows, glowing points of vivid color in the darkness. Many of Fereldan’s nobles claimed to be descended from Hafter, the first teyrn of Ferelden, who was supposedly the son of a werewolf. The legend explained the Fereldan people’s natural tenacity and loyalty, a point of pride among the people. Looking out at the Dalish, Alistair wondered if the elves had a cat ancestor somewhere.

By the main campfire, a solemn elf with a high forehead and long nose accentuating his thin face showed Raviathan how to make something involving sharpened sticks and flexible strips of bark. The two sat close with their heads together, their fine-boned fingers working in a graceful dance to construct some item. Now that Raviathan wore Dalish leathers that suited him, Alistair wondered at the strange way the elf fit in with the Dalish and how he stood out.

Though not as dark as Duncan, Raviathan’s coloration marked him as something exotic amongst pale Fereldans. The clan had only a few with the same dusky skin, all exchanges from other clans up north. The Dalish seemed to accept the new elf well enough, and fitted with Dalish armor, Raviathan should have fit in with the clan. But something in his manner set him apart, though Alistair couldn’t say what that was.

The elves had an almost unconscious need to touch each other, a simple squeeze of a comrade’s shoulder or caress of another’s arm as they spoke. Raviathan had kept his distance from everyone in the party, all except Venger, but as Alistair watched, he realized that the affection the elf shared with Duncan and the dog mirrored the way all the elves in the clan were with each other.

Seeing the Dalish filled Alistair with a jealous longing he never expected. The affections the elves shared came naturally, a sense of belonging that Alistair had ached for as far back as he could remember.

While the clan accepted Raviathan, the rest of the party continued getting hostile glances. Bright flashes of elven eyes watched them from the shadows, their gazes a warning that while the party might be tolerated for the sake of the treaty and fellow elf, there would be nothing but enmity between them.

“It’s like we’re in a different world here,” Leliana said with a reverent cadence. “They way the light touches their skin, it’s like they’re lovers.”

Alistair’s brow creased in puzzlement at the bard’s phrasing, but as he thought about her words, it made sense.

“You know what I mean,” she said at his look. “It’s like the sun pulls light out of them, as if they’re the first light’s long lost children. They’re luminescent as fine pearls, waiting for their reunion with the sun on the morrow. But firelight also brings an ethereal warmth. It seems almost magical, like fireflies drifting in a summer breeze. I feel as if we’re in a world of spirits and only their eyes look out at us from another realm. Brilliant as jewels, but that’s why they flash.”

It was a bit too poetic for Alistair’s taste, and his inclination was to scoff, but Leliana’s observations had some merit. “You should make a song out of that.”

“Maybe I will,” she replied, a coy smile stretching her full mouth.

A faint smile played upon Alistair’s lips as he thought of Leliana. Out of all of them, he was closest to her. They had the Chantry in common for one, though their views couldn’t be more different, and some of her ideas were queer. While he couldn’t help but shake his head at a few of her odd notions, like how the Maker was in every living thing, he found her devotion charming. Well, charming when she didn’t come off as a nutter. Prophecies from the Maker? Did she really believe that?

Even so, Leliana did have a way of charming everyone. So patient too. And brave. Sten did not intimidate her, and she could even put up with that horrible witch. Though she dressed simply and did not mind getting her armor dirty, her auburn hair usually left in a tousled mess, she carried an air of femininity.

In some odd ways, Leliana reminded him of Lady Isolde, at least more than she reminded him of the servants. Servants bustled about and shouted threats or made crude jokes. But Leliana wasn’t like the sisters and mothers of the Chantry. Maybe it was her love of poetry or how she admired beautiful things that was more like Isolde. Not that the servants were dullards, but there was a refinement to Leliana they didn’t have. It made him wonder about her. What had she been before she joined the Chantry?

He thought she might be a lady, but she was too pragmatic and skilled with a bow. In Ferelden, women often trained in combat, but Orlesians didn’t have the same attitudes of ladies learning the warrior arts. Leliana hadn’t been a servant or some farmer either. The daughter of a merchant who had hopes of moving up in status by educating his daughter to marry a low-level noble? That didn’t explain how she had learned to fight. She hadn’t answered many of their questions, and Alistair considered the mystery of her more intriguing for it.

In any case, he found their conversations enjoyable even if he felt nervous and a bit affected when talking to her. She didn’t seem to mind though. “You’re not at all put off? We didn’t exactly get the warmest reception.”

“I’m surprised you remember.” She laughed. “The way you babble when you’re delirious!”

Alistair blushed, but he couldn’t be mad. “Please tell me I didn’t go on about the time I was in a fishing boat that wasn’t moored and drifted out into Lake Calenhad.” He ducked his head to hide his smile when she laughed. “I got the worst sunburn before anyone realized I was missing.”

She covered her smile with a hand. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t laugh so.”

Alistair shrugged. Laughter he could deal with.

“As for the Dalish, we are unfamiliar to them. Even Rav was having a difficult time.”

Alistair’s brow furrowed as he looked over at the gathered elves. “Are we talking about the same elf, because he doesn’t look like they’ve given him a hard time.”

“Not now. When we arrived, the Dalish were quite standoffish. All day he’s been going around, helping with the halla, talking with the hunters and craftsmen.”

“How have you been doing? With the Dalish, I mean.” Leliana had such an easy way about her, Alistair was sure she could charm her way into their good graces.

Leliana’s warm voice turned as sweet as cinnamon frosting on a hot roll. “There was this one boy in love. It was the most precious thing ever. Dalish courtship isn’t like any that I’ve seen before, but after talking to them both, love wins the day. They’re going to be handfasted by Zathrian in a few days.”

“Love wins the day? I don’t think that’ll work against the darkspawn.”

“Silly.” Leliana cocked her head as she studied the elves. “I could be wrong, but I think they respect him more as a Grey Warden than as a fellow elf.”

That couldn’t be true. If so, why was Alistair being ignored, again?

The jealousy that had been gathering at the back of Alistair’s mind turned to loneliness so strong it made his chest ache. He couldn’t even see the elves anymore. The two of them were Grey Wardens. That was suppose to be a bond. And they were the only two left. Raviathan made such an effort for the Dalish, but all Alistair got was anger, contempt, and distrust. Why wasn’t he good enough?

Visions of the Wardens tumbled through Alistair’s mind, fragments of when he had been happiest.

Waking up from the nightmare after drinking in the taint, and though horrified by the visions, he saw only respect from the Grey Wardens around him. They had no doubts about him, no looking down on him or pushing him aside. He was their brother, without question. Men twenty years his senior treated him like a comrade, a person deserving of respect.

A few days after he and Duncan returned to Denerim, Levine called Alistair over to share drinks with his fellows. During the journey to Denerim, Alistair half expected the other Wardens to be cold, at least until they got to know him, but no. They treated him as if he belonged. They enjoyed his company, were proud to call him a brother. When Levine invited him, the five Wardens had talked for hours, all telling stories. They didn’t get bored of him, didn’t tell him he was nattering on. They laughed with him.

Gregor’s stories of the Anderfels fascinated Alistair. Levine shared adventures of his childhood in Orlais. Rodden spun a tale of finding a cave with dragon bones scattered within when he lived in Nevarra. Trying to sell them led to trouble, which is how he wound up with the Wardens. Merrin claimed to have ties to one of the royal families of the Free Marches. Though Alistair never remembered the royal houses Merrin talked about, the exploits of the royals never ceased to make him laugh.

 
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